Populism, its opposites, and its contentious relationship with democracy

Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser – The recent Eurocrisis has shown a fact that is relatively obvious for observers of Latin American and US politics, namely, that populism can be both right-wing and left-wing in nature, but has two opposing terms which together define it: elitism and pluralism.

While it is true that academics and pundits alike use the concept of populism to analyse political forces that are characterised by their hostility towards mainstream political forces, there is an ongoing discussion about a) how to define populism and b) how we can identify populist actors, parties and movements…in this short piece I would like to reflect on some misconceptions and problematic assumptions about populism that I believe are fairly widespread in the academic and public discussion